How Neil Strauss's The Game Got the Green Light as a Movie

The Game, a six-year-old book about being passive-aggressive to women as a means of courting, will soon become a film. The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pick-up Artists will be produced by MGM and will be written by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, the men behind A Solitary Man, Ocean's 13, and The Girlfriend Experience.

The Game, written by Neil Strauss, explains how making acerbic observations, demonstrating blatant favoritism among groups of women, and being generally unpleasant is a foolproof recipe for attracting certain types of women and getting what you want. How does such a movie get the green light? Below, we imagine the conversation at MGM . . .Enthusiastic producer: What’s up, guys?